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State on threshold of losing its identity

October 5, 2015 Editor

The year 2015 has pushed Jammu and Kashmir to an alarmingly dangerous threshold. People of the state are feeling lost and confused as they find themselves caught in a bind in an all-suffocating atmosphere of reeking corruption and an unresponsive system peppered by communalism and radicalism. Is it worth living in this state, where the leadership of all hues is self-serving and interested in promoting a highly polarised agenda? This question is haunting the people in the state, with each region and community becoming distrustful of one another. The Kashmir…

As meat is turned into a political issue across India, a Muslim ironsmith in Dadri pays the price

October 3, 2015October 3, 2015 Editor

In the Uttar Pradesh village where a mob murdered Mohammed Akhlaq for allegedly eating beef, youngsters have been avidly following the debates on cattle slaughter in Maharashtra, Kashmir and other parts of the country. Supriya Sharma Eighteen-year-old Vandana Rana is a second-year student in the Bachelors of Pharmacy course in RV Northland Institute in Dadri, about 50 kilometres from Delhi. She has read about the ban on beef in Maharashtra. As recently as last week, she watched news on TV that Kashmiris had slaughtered cows on Bakri-Eid despite a ban…

Lost identity of Kashmiris

September 30, 2015 Editor

Ashok Kaul History does not allow us to pass judgments; even, you cannot draw lessons from it. However, we can interpret it, so that the consensus version acceptable in all times and to all multiplicity, if possible could be explored. Therefore, without carrying a baggage of ideology and confessionalism, dialectics of social forces and emerging of social formations seems to be a scientific approach to comprehend the social history. Why are we cursed a pathological case? True, displacement of minority en-masse, death of one lakh people, and vanishing of primary…

Kashmir’s “Internet Curtain”!

September 29, 2015 Editor

M Ashraf Kashmir’s popular movement for freedom started in 1931. In 1938, the movement which was started for getting the basic rights in an autocratic set up by the Muslims was converted into a nationalist movement. The manifesto for the movement which was written by staunch communists B.P.L and Fredda Bedi reflected many similarities of the Russian Revolution. The Red Flag, the Plough representing the peasantry replicating the Sickle and Hammer of the Russian workers, the naming of the popular spot for public meetings as the Red Square and so…

Baking is In

September 29, 2015 Editor

Syed Asma The traditional bakery in Kashmir is gone through generational shift. The takeover is putting young and enthusiastic entrepreneurs’ raise the bar in a highly competitive market. One fine afternoon, the flamboyant ex-chief minister of J&K Dr Farooq Abdullah pulled his SUV outside a recently opened bakery shop ‘Just Baked’ in Sanat Nagar, Srinagar. Accompanied by his daughter and grandchildren, senior Abdullah purchased bakery items worth Rs 2000. It instantly made news. Launched in July 2015, the brain behind ‘Just Baked’ is Rouf Khanday: a business management graduate from…

The Crown Princes of Kashmir

September 28, 2015 Editor

Andrew Whitehead Kashmir dispensed with princely rule two generations and more ago – yet there are plenty of crown princes still at hand. The political order has changed utterly but there’s no shortage of aspirants to power whose status has in large part been inherited. That was brought home to me while reading the new and much talked about book by A.S. Dulat, the former head of the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW). In Kashmir: the Vajpayee years, Dulat asserts that the ‘four likely players for the future in Kashmir…

How Eid used to be celebrated

September 28, 2015 Editor

Rakib Chatt Eid Aye Rasse Rasse Eidgah Was Wai, (Eid has arrived, let us go to Eidgah) was the most prominent song which was sung on the occasion of Eid in Kashmir valley. Today, though it is in the heart of the people of Kashmir, the tradition seems lost in chores and Eid arrangements. Since when has the song been a hallmark of Eid celebration, a tradition which now seems to be lost? “Song Eid Aye Rasse Rasse Eidgah Was Wai is an old tradition and we have been hearing…

Beef Ban – Expect the unexpected

September 23, 2015 Editor

Shoeb Hamid There are only two theories that appear to be of some application when Beef Ban hullabaloo is put in a tangible context. One, that the Beef Ban was a deliberate ploy to take away the attention from poor performance of the government, especially the BJP wing, after 2014 floods. And two, that the right-wing is testing waters in the state, perhaps for the launch of more aggressive attack on the Muslim majority community. Few days before Beef Ban grabbed the attention by becoming lead stories together with the…

Kashmiri Language – The identity of Kashmiris

September 23, 2015 Editor

Brij Nath Betab Our mother tongue Kashmiri not only gives us our cultural identity but also magnifies our cultural ethos by connecting us with our traditions and cultural expressions. Today, when we boast of our rich past, it could not be possible if the language would not connect us with our ancestors and particularly with those whose words of wisdom have become guiding principles of our social life. Despite having contributed magnificently to India’s social and cultural milieu, apprehensions of an onslaught on Kashmiri language have been lurking large. One…

Did you ban cow-slaughter in Kashmir right before Eid to offend Muslim sensibilities?

September 23, 2015 Editor

Faraz Talat As soon as the Indian authorities are done congratulating themselves over the arrest of the Kashmiri anti-nationalist figurehead, Asiya Andrabi, they can start explaining how they intend to win Kashmiri hearts and minds through an expanding list of despotic restrictions being imposed upon the people. The firebrand chief of the all-female separatist group, Dukhtaran-e-Millat or “Daughters of Faith”, was recently arrested from her Soura resident over a bizarre list of charges. These include the crime of waving the Pakistani national flag and singing the Pakistani national anthem, as well as slaughtering a…